Scott Rosin grew up in Redondo Beach in the Fifties and Sixties when it was a sleepy beach town. At age 11, he survived a near-fatal illness that lasted most of 1959. Besides keeping him bedridden during a long recovery, the illness afforded him an opportunity to read a year's worth of classical and modern literature--Homeric sagas, Norse and Greek mythology, Renaissance poets, Dumas, Dickens, Twain, Steinbeck, Hemingway, McCullers, and poets Cummings, Ferlinghetti and Marquis. Later, he tried his hand at writing but abandoned the effort because he felt he hadn't lived enough.

Rosin's brush with mortality left him with a life-long habit of embracing challenge. In the summer of 1960, he began surfing. In 1971, he left the crowded So-Cal burbs and beaches for rural Oregon. He stayed. As he puts it, "I always loved the woods as much as the beach. Anything to do with trees. I fought wildfire, became a smokejumper, worked as a faller, tree planter, logger and for the last 27 years of my working life owned a tree-service business. If it had anything to do with manual labor, trees or lower back pain, I've done it."

Somehow, Rosin also managed to write. His first break was his affiliation with Red Octopus Theatre Company in Newport, OR, where three of his one act plays were produced along with two full-length plays. He was also co-author of a book and lyrics for a full-length musical based on The Gift by O. Henry, also produced. Some of his surf poems appeared in Pacific Longboard Magaine in the Nineties, and some of his fire-fighting poems were published in Wildland Firefighter Magazine also during that time period. "Smokey and Kit," included in this book, was originally published in the late Chris Bystrom's The Glide, the Renaissance of LongBoard Surfing. Rosin now lives on his working tree farm high in the Coast Range of Oregon. He is currently writing a novel set in Western Oregon.